by Cathy Yardley | Writing Life
Have you ever experienced the sting of someone expressing they didn’t like what you wrote? Unless you’ve been writing in a cave and refusing to let anyone look at your stories (or only giving it to people who will mouth platitudes and “adore”...
by Cathy Yardley | Business, Craft, Writing Life
“I would never put out anything less than my best!” I’ve been reading this a lot lately, in blog posts, in comments, on social media. Usually, it’s referring to self-publishing ( “I would never publish anything less than my best!”)...
by Cathy Yardley | Business, Writing Life
Last time, we talked about how a publishing trend cycle works, generally speaking. Given that snapshot, you might ask yourself: why would anyone in their right mind try to chase the trend? There are a number of reasons people chase a trend cycle. For some authors who...
by Cathy Yardley | Business, Writing Life
Recently, literary fiction author Ted Heller wrote an article for Salon called “The future is no fun: Self-publishing is the worst.” In it, he describes his misadventures in self-publishing his latest novel, specifically the difficulty he’s had...
by Cathy Yardley | Writing Life
Deep in deadline hell, peeps. For me, this usually means a scattered attention span, a lot of mumbling under my breath — and a hair trigger around things that seem trivial, almost stupid. So yesterday, I tripped on one of these triggers. Thankfully, after a few...
by Cathy Yardley | Craft, Promotion, Writing Life
I’ve noticed on some of the writer forums and blogs I check out, and in responses to my newsletter, that there is this obsession with getting it right. What’s the right way to plot, some ask. How should this work? What do editors want to see? ...
